Famously First: A Second Chance Romance Read online

  Famously First

  A Second Chance Romance

  Roxy Reid

  Copyright © 2019 Roxy Reid

  All rights reserved. It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  For my incredible Friends and Family who have encouraged and supported me on my journey to becoming a writer.

  If music be the food of love, play on.

  William Shakespeare

  Contents

  About the Author

  1. Charlie

  2. Finn

  3. Charlie

  4. Charlie

  5. Finn

  6. Charlie

  7. Finn

  8. Charlie

  9. Finn

  10. Charlie

  11. Finn

  12. Charlie

  13. Charlie

  14. Finn

  15. Charlie

  16. Finn

  17. Charlie

  18. Finn

  19. Charlie

  20. Charlie

  Also by Roxy Reid

  Keep in Touch

  About the Author

  Roxy Reid writes sizzling hot romance about kick-ass women and deliciously hot guys that are guaranteed to leave you with a smile on your face and a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

  Roxy’s first love is writing and a very close second is tea, oh and cake, don’t forget the cake. Most days you’ll find her in a cafe scribbling away in a notebook, dreaming up romantic stories to share with her readers.

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  facebook.com/RoxyReidAuthor

  Send an email

  [email protected]

  1

  Charlie

  I’m zoomed in, carefully editing out a model’s nose hair on photoshop, when there’s a shout from the other side of the wall. I flinch, taking out a chunk of the model’s nose.

  “Shit,” I hit undo and look around for my headphones. “DAISY, KEEP IT DOWN!!!”

  When I imagined my life at 28, I did not imagine a roommate who liked to shout—at the t.v., at the neighbors, during sex. She’s a very vocal woman, Daisy.

  I also didn’t imagine how much it costs to live in New York City, or how difficult it is to make a living as a photographer. When an old boss of mine retired last year, I took over most of her clients and went independent. I’m slowly, slowly building a reputation for high quality portraiture and for advertising shoots. And every now and then, I do get to do really fun stuff. A few months ago I shot the season images for a local ballet company.

  But mostly it’s a lot of editing nose hairs. I didn’t mind at first, when I thought it was just a career stage I had to work through until I could make the art I want. But hell, New York is competitive. My old boss had to retire and move to fucking Jersey before she could finally do her dream project.

  If I’m honest, I’m beginning to fear I’ll never make it. I’ll spend my life doing corporate photo shoots to sell shit no one needs for the next fifty years, listening to my roommates have lives on the other side of the wall.

  Except I don’t like being afraid, so I convert it to rage—at Daisy, at my more obnoxious clients, at you-know-who when his stupid song comes on the radio.

  Rage is a comfortable emotion, especially in New York. It’s like black clothes—we don’t hold it against you if you’re into happiness and color, but we all agree that unless otherwise prompted, the natural state of the city is mostly black outfits and barely repressed anger.

  I put on my headphones and take a deep breath.

  One day, I tell myself. One day I’ll have the clout, and the money, and the time to take the kind of projects I really want.

  I click on a moody rock playlist to drown out Daisy and go back to work. I’m playing up the blue in the photo to make the model’s eyes pop, when the song changes, and his voice fills my ears.

  That distinctive rough, untrained tenor. You know he means every word. Lyrics that are by turns sarcastic, romantic, clever, then just when you think he might have a heart, viciously sarcastic again. It’s a Finn Ryan song all right.

  I yank my headphones off. I’ve dated a lot of asshole men, but only one broke up with me to become a fucking rockstar, and then actually succeeded.

  My phone buzzes, and I reach for it, grateful for the distraction. It’s the photo editor from False Prophet, a national music magazine that thinks it’s cooler than it is. They’re famous for doing vicious exposés that bring down moguls, producers, and rockstars alike. They also do overly glowing interviews with up and coming indie artists, which is where I come in. I’ve shot portraits for said indie-artists a couple of times. I answer the phone, hoping they’ve got another job for me.

  “Charlie! How are you? Living that wild young-in-the-city life?” Shaun Coleman asks. He’s an overly gregarious middle-aged man who thinks he’s interesting because of where he works. But he hires me every now and then, which is something I appreciate in a man.

  “You know it,” I say, rolling my eyes at my sad, messy bedroom. My social life and I are basically strangers at this point. I lean back and put my feet up on my desk. “How can I help you, Shaun?”

  “That’s my Charlie, straight to the point! Heh-heh, right, well …”

  He’s taking so long to spit it out I worry there’s something wrong with the last batch of photos I sent in.

  Finally Shaun says, “Have you ever thought about photojournalism?”

  I sit up straight, my feet crashing to the floor. Have I ever thought about photojournalism? Only since forever. It’s why I first got into photography. I love fading into the background, capturing people as they really are. Photo shoots are fun, but they’re fiction. Photojournalism? That’s the truth.

  “Absolutely, and I have some experience,” I hasten to add, which is sort of true, if you count my college newspaper.

  “Of course, of course. Well,” Shaun clears his throat. “There’s a musician we’re interested in doing an exposé on. He’s on tour, but he hasn’t let press join him, and several former employees of his have contacted me saying there’s something there. We want to send you. You’d be following him for the last leg of his tour. $20,000 for the story, plus expenses. You interested?”

  Yes. Fuck yes. “If he won’t let press on the tour, how I will I get access?”

  “His marketing team is hiring a new photographer. You’d be undercover.”

  I stand up and start pacing, my excitement building, even as I try to stay rational. This sounds way too good to be true. And, I’ve never done anything like it before. On the other hand … $20,000. That’s half a year’s salary. I could get a Daisy-free apartment. Or I could skip an assignment every now and then and focus on the projects I really want to do.

  “Well?” Shaun asks.

  “Look, if his marketing team let’s me in the door, I’d take it in a heartbeat. But I can’t guarantee they’d hire me. I haven’t done concert photography in years, and I’m sure there will be applicants with more experience.”

  “We’re confident you’ll stand out,” Shaun says. “He has a reputation for hiring people he knows.”

  I freeze as the other shoe drops, “Shaun. Who’s the musician?”

  “I … uh … er … we really need you to sign the paperwork before I can reveal that information. This is a big sto
ry, and I can’t have you scooping us.”

  “It’s Finn Ryan, isn’t it?” I demand.

  Shaun sputters, which might as well be a confirmation.

  I walk to the window, my ears roaring. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m getting a financial windfall, paid travel, and a way to break into photojournalism.

  And all I have to do is bring down the first guy I ever loved. The first guy I slept with. The first guy who crushed my heart to fucking smithereens.

  I press a fist to my forehead, wincing at the memories. I almost dropped out of school to run away with Finn. I was three months from graduating and so naive, I would have left San Francisco with him in a heart-beat. We were going to travel the country together, me photographing everything weird and beautiful, him playing in every grimy bar that would hire an 18-year-old to play.

  And then he dumped me—without warning and without explanation.

  I press my fist into the glass of the windowpane. It’s the first really cold day of fall, and the cold stings as it sinks into my hand.

  “Would that be a problem?” Shaun asks. “If it was Finn Ryan?”

  “No,” I say. My grin is fierce as I imagine the karmic justice of winning my big break by taking Finn down a peg. “It would be a bonus.”

  2

  Finn

  “You’re hung over again, aren’t you?” my manager Bridget asks. Her voice rings loudly in the marble-heavy hotel suite.

  Bridget is an old Irish name meaning “strength and vigor.” Alternately, “exalted one.” I’d add “pain in the ass” and “morning person,” but other than that, the name fits. Bridget’s been in the business for fifteen years longer than me. She looks eerily ageless, dresses in black, and knows everything about the music business. One time I caught her listening to Miranda Lambert, but that’s the only personal thing I know about her.

  Bridget knows everything about me though. Well, almost everything.

  Which is why lie I lie and say, “Yep, hung over.”

  I don’t tell her the truth. That I was up until two hours ago, desperately trying to write a song. Any song.

  I’m due in the studio in a month to start recording my next album, and I don’t have a single song.

  I’m worried something is permanently broken in me, because no matter how hard I try, I can’t fucking write. The only person I’ve told is my older brother Jim. He thinks I’m having trouble because I never write alone.

  I scoffed when he said it. Sure, my last two albums were co-written with Zane Wright, one of the biggest asshole producers in the music industry—which is why we’re not working together anymore. I finally fired him when I got sick of him making the intern cry. She tried to reassure me by saying it was fine; Zane made her cry every day.

  But my first album, the one that got me on the map and that won me all the awards? I wrote that one by myself.

  At least that’s how I remembered it. But Jim pointed out that I started most of those songs back when I was still with my high school girlfriend. We were teenagers with nothing better to do but come up with excuses to be near each other. We’d hang out for hours—me playing a hook, her giving me blunt feedback or throwing out a lyric idea while she flipped through the glossy photography magazines I’d buy her, since that was literally the only photography thing I could afford to buy her.

  I never thought about it as co-writing because she wasn’t a musician, and she certainly wasn’t putting any effort into it. But there’s enough traces of her ideas on my first album that if I was recording it today, Bridget would insist on a tiny co-writing credit at the bottom so I wouldn’t get sued.

  Unfortunately, it’s too late to find a collaborator for this album, unless I want to push the release date back. Or work with Zane again, despite the public falling out we had, and the way he tried to bad-mouth me to every gossip magazine that would listen.

  So while everyone else on our tour has been enjoying the four days off after the New York shows, I’ve been holed up in this hotel room trying to write a song completely by myself, for the first time in over ten years.

  And it hasn’t fucking worked.

  I feel dull and miserable. I’m a fraud. And the only way to keep the fraud going for another album is to call a man I hate, and beg him to come back, where he will be shitty and cruel to people who look up to me.

  Maybe I can figure out a way where Zane’s literally only interacting with me. I know from experience that will make him even worse, but I deserve it. I’m the rockstar who can’t write a single fucking song without someone holding my hand.

  Bridget hands me a glass of cold water and two aspirin with the efficiency of a nurse. Or someone who spends a lot of time with musicians.

  I take my medicine, because I can already feel a headache coming on at the thought of working with Zane again.

  “As I was saying,” Bridget says before sitting down on the couch across from me, “we need to hire a photographer for the second half of the tour. I know you trusted Kai, but he has decided to follow his bliss to Iceland, whatever that means.”

  “Do we have to?” I say. It comes out like a whine. Probably because it is.

  “Do you want a lecture on the importance of marketing and the cost benefit analysis of live shots verses studio shots?” Bridget asks.

  “No,” I say, and slouch farther into the couch.

  “Do you finally trust me enough to let me do my job and pick a damn photographer without your input?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Then you pick a photographer,” Bridget leans over the glass coffee table to pass me a tablet.

  I make a big show of sitting up, because I know it annoys Bridget, and start swiping through portfolios. They’re all excellent, unsurprisingly. Bridget doesn’t let anything subpar pass her desk.

  I’m about to pick a photographer at random, not that I’ll admit that to Bridget, when my eyes snag on one photo. It’s a black and white photo of my favorite corner in San Francisco. A little cafe where I used to sit for hours across from the girl I liked, while she did homework, and I ignored my own homework to write bad lyrics about her midnight black eyes.

  I keep swiping through the rest of this photographer’s portfolio. It’s less music focused than the others. There’s some stunning shots of dancers performing, along with gorgeous streetscapes. Mostly of San Francisco and New York, with a side of what looks like small-town New England.

  “I know you always want to personally see the applications of people who claim they know you, so I included one wild card,” Bridget says. “But I’d really recommend we go with a tried-and-true music photographer. We’ll need fresh photos to use in the lead up to the album launch.”

  I can’t tear my eyes away from the San Francisco photos. The thing is, they’re not tourist photos. They’re photos of my neighborhood, of my favorite places. Hell, there’s one of my parent’s pub.

  Wait. I know that photo. I own that photo. I commissioned that photo. Ostensibly as a Christmas photo, but really as an excuse to spend time with her.

  I check the watermark.

  Charlie De Luca Photography.

  I can’t believe it. I literally can’t believe it. I haven’t talked to Charlie in ten years—mostly because she made it very clear she didn’t want to talk to me—but this feels like a sign.

  If she applied to shoot my tour, maybe she’s ready to bury the hatchet. And if she’s ready for that, maybe she’d be up for …

  I don’t know, sitting in the room while I write?

  It sounds stupid as soon as I think it, but I can’t let go of the idea. Obviously, Charlie’s not a good luck charm that will magically fix my writer’s block.

  But maybe … Maybe if I hire her to do photography and we spend time together, maybe get to be friends, and she’s telling me what she thinks … maybe that dynamic will unlock something in me that I desperately need unlocked.

  It’s worth a shot, right? Even if it doesn’t work, what harm could it do?
/>   You could fall in love with her again, a voice inside me says.

  Something old and warm flickers in my chest, but I push it down ruthlessly. I am not going down that hellhole of a road again. I’ve changed. She’s changed. People don’t end up with the girl they fell for in high school. It’s not a thing that happens.

  To prove to myself how absolutely immune I am to Charlie De Luca, I click through to her website. It would be a lie to say I haven’t thought about Charlie at all in the past ten years. Half the songs on my first album are about her.

  But they’re about Charlie-from-the-past. I don’t think about Charlie-now. I don’t think about if she’s a photography success, although clearly she is. I don’t think about if she moved back to San Francisco after college—she didn’t, according to her website. I don’t think about who she’s fucking now. Probably some responsible guy in a suit who actually graduated high school, if her parents had anything to say about it.

  See, I am totally over her, I tell the voice.

  I click to her personal bio, not admitting to myself what I’m looking for, until I see she isn’t married and breathe a sigh of relief.

  Why am I relieved? I AM NOT INTO HER. I’m just interested in using her proximity to rescue my career. That’s all.

  You can’t see her eyes, in the photo she has of herself on her website. It’s a photo of her lifting her camera, aiming the lens right at you. All you can see is her shiny black hair hanging to her collar bone, and her delicate hands peeking out of an oversized sweater to cradle the camera. Her smile is wide and happy.